Self-Judgement . . . Influenced Through Childhood

How influenced are we by the gifts and travesties of our childhood?

I don't know about you but I heard it all growing up . . . . What I did right. What I did wrong. How I was like my father. How I should be more like my mother. I heard how I was living up to my parents expectations or how I was not. I was constantly being told, both verbally and non-verbally, how I should act in order to be more liked by the world in which I lived.

In a world full of judgement, my universe revolved around if I was pleasing or dissatisfying the people in my life. So I, in turn, unconsciously became more critical of myself because I believed I never quite "measured up" to who I really wanted to be. 

 

So, how and why do we come to judge ourselves? 

Is it by the right and the wrong, the good and bad reinforcers of our childhood and adolescent experiences? 
The values and beliefs of our families?
The interpretations and assumptions of a person's life experiences?

Where ever it comes from I can say this . . . . This judgement, the critic within me that continues to repeat the dysfunctional story that I could and should be better, is the antagonist to my happiness.

 

Interesting fact . . . .

Brain development through childhood is a tremendously complex process. The component that I want to take the time to note is that a child has developmental plasticity up to  5 to 7 years of age. The developmental plasticity acts much like a sponge, taking in all of the information from his or her environment. Neural connections are facilitated between brain cells all around the brain, some of which are pruned to help organize movement and information more effectively while others stay dormant.

Not all neural connections that were established are active in adulthood. Many lay dormant in the brain and have an unconscious effect on a person's life. The dormant neural connections of the positive and negative reinforcement provided throughout childhood is rooted in where self-judgement and critique stem from, along with the need for external reinforcement. 

If one thing is clear this is it . . . . It is clear that self-judgement is the antithesis of self-love..
Self-judgement re-stimulates wounds and dormant emotional experiences that play like a broken record until brought to conscious awareness. 

 

So, what to do with this information? 

Knowing that it is impossible to go back in time to erase or redo what has been done, it becomes a choice to settle these internal differences by letting go of the judgements that have been adopted around one's life experience. Obviously, this is not an easy task to do. We are talking about heavy laden emotions, both conscious and unconscious, that goes into accepting the past for what it is. 

It may be true that life may not always meet my expectation to feel completely loved and safe, but it is safe to say that every person in life did the BEST that they could at that time with the level of awareness they were functioning at. And with this same compassion that I give to others, I return to myself. I have done and will do the best that I can do until I know better, and when I know better I will do better. Thank you Maya Angelo for this beautiful sentiment.

And in good part of all of the judgements, treasured moments, and adversities that I came face to face with through my life experiences, I am the person that I am today.

 

where do we go from here?

So what have I learned and what am I learning in my journey OUT of self-judgement?

I believed that I was doing my best not too long ago, and in fact I was. I was perplexed one day by the thought of what I could do to love myself more. That is when an "A-HA" struck. It wasn't WHAT I could do to love myself more, it was HOW i could love myself more.

This "a-ha" lead me to recognize how hard I was on myself, how high of expectations that I had for myself, and how I was constantly in conversations of whether I was adding up or not.

I am learning HOW to love myself now. I am learning that I can love myself through replacing self-judgement with self-compassion, self-kindness, self-empathy, and self-forgiveness. 

I can validate and acknowledge myself for trying or not trying, knowing that I can play the game of life differently at any given moment in time. 

It dawned on me then and there that self-love is really about HOW I take care of my vulnerable heart.
Loving myself through showing self-kindness by paying attention to my feelings, no longer avoiding them or pushing them away.
Loving myself through being forgiving of my humanness which means accepting my vulnerabilities. 
Loving myself by showing empathy to the scared little girl who just wants to feel loved and safe.
Loving myself through validating the work that I do everyday to be a better person.

It's interesting that the things that we are taught in childhood to give to others we are really not taught to give to ourselves: compassion, empathy, kindness, forgiveness, patience, understanding, validation. We actually find ourselves being judged and judging based off what kindnesses we give away to others or what kindness we receive. We though were not taught how to keep our heart open and softened to ourselves and our minds clear of all of the cynical chatter. 

 

Dawn of a new day . . . . 

So, how do we start to provide these things for our children when we are just learning them ourselves? 

Like mentioned before, kids absorb pretty much everything from their environment. 

The more we model self-love, the greater the chance that our children will inherently learn how to love themselves more deeply. 
The less judgmental we are on yourself, the less judgmental we will be with our children and in turn the less judgmental our child will be on themselves and hopefully others.

The more we acknowledge and validate ourselves for all of the things that we are doing, the more positive energy we will experience in our day to day life; and with this energy we will have more patience, understanding, and be less critical of kids just being kids. 

I invite you to share with me the experience of living from a place where there is a lot more love and a lot less judgement. Let's influence our children positively through loving ourselves for the beauty and the gifts that we bring to the world.